In engaging and lucid discussion, twelve of the world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers clarify many of the complex scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today.
What are leading scientists working on now? What do they think about the working of the brain, climate change, animal experimentation, cancer, and mental illness? Is science progressing or in retreat? Is this century humankind's last?
These are just some of the compelling questions discussed by twelve of world's leading scientists and scientific thinkers in this fascinating book. In engaging and lucid discussion, they clarify many of the complex scientific challenges and dilemmas facing science today. They also explain what drives their interest in science, revealing something of the often-neglected personal side of science.
Steven Pinker Evolutionary Psychology
Robin MurrayPsychiatry and Schizophrenia
Kevin Warwick Cybernetics
Susan Greenfield The Brain and Human Consciousness
Norman Levitt Science under Threat
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity
Steve Jones Genes
Dorothy Crawford Viruses and their Threats
Michael Stratton Cancer Research
Martin Rees Science: Its Dangers and Its Public
Colin BlakemoreMedical Research, Animal Experimentation and Science
John Polkinghorne Science and Religion
'I don't often recommend books in the health column, but I have to make an exception this week. It's called What Scientists Think ... Why do I recommend it as a doctor? Because there are chapters on the brain and consciousness, on psychiatry and schizophrenia, on viruses and their threats, and on cancer research and animal experimentation, all of which are absolute 'must' reads for anyone who wishes to be properly informed on all of these subjects. If I were a schoolteacher I'd buy a copy for every teenager and certainly every student going to university - not just those studying science, but for all the others, too, who find science difficult or even alien ... it is straightforward and thought-provoking and if you have opinions on science be prepared to change them.'- Dr Tom Smith, Broadcasting Doctors' Association
'Highly personal yet wholly intellectual, the interviewees reflect current hotspots in research'- Victoria Neumark, TES
'What Scientists Think ... can begin, incrementally, to give non-scientists a glimpse of how scientists work, and their thoughts and worries ... Stangroom has produced a volume in which the issues are contemporary and the interviewees speak clearly and non-technically. At just 194 pages, it is a simple and pleasingly effective manual for understanding scientists and what they think.'- Mark Pagel, New Humanist